A step by step system for easily maintaining your bike at home

Slow changing gears, brakes that don’t bring a bike to a quick stop and strange creaks coming from near your pedals.

Everyone recognises the symptoms of a bike in need of attention.

Most people would love to have a bike that runs as smoothly as the day you bought it, without any weird noises and responsive brakes and gears. The sort of bike that leaves you to enjoy the pleasure of a bike ride.

Many people try to learn how to maintain their bikes themselves by looking on YouTube. There are a huge number of videos on there, on nearly every bike maintenance topic. However, none of them tie everything together, in to an easy to follow, step by step system.

Therefore, while you can dive in to different topics, you never get an overview that allows you to run through your bike, spot any issues early on and easily resolve them.

Typically, a weekend course that will teach you this will cost around £200.

However, this week we’ve launched our online bike maintenance course. The course shows you how you can maintain your bike at home, in a weekend. It is available for just £20. Then, once we’ve given London Cyclist readers the chance to join, the price will be doubling to £20.

A complete system for bike maintenance at home

Inside you’ll discover:

How to run through the entire of your bike in 5 minutes and identify any issues you need to look at

How to adjust your gears so that they instantly respond and how to replace gear cables. (This would cost £30 in a bike shop)

How to adjust your brakes so that when you pull your brake leaver 2/3rds of the way down, your brakes are fully engaged and your bike comes to a quick stop. We also show how you can easily replace your brake cables and brake pads (This would cost £25 in a bike shop)

How to spot when your chain and cassette are worn and how to replace them (£55 in a bike shop)

How to quickly repair a puncture at the road side (£13.95 in a bike shop)

How to true your wheels so that they don’t wobble side to side (£18.95 per wheel in a bike shop)

The basics to bike fitting

Plus how to service your pedals, headset, crank and bottom bracket.

Save over £100 per year on bike shop fees

Yearly bike services cost around £100. By repairing your bike at home, you save this money and you can fix your bike without having to rely on the bike shop fitting you in.

A £20 toolkit for completing 70% of the repairs in the course

Once you’ve got a puncture repair kit and a pump, you only really need a few basics to maintain your bike at home:

A set of Allen keys (£3.25)

Screwdriver (£1.50)

Chain tool £6)

Lubricant and grease (£9)

This should allow you to do most adjustments on your bike and complete around 70% of the course. Then, as your confidence grows, you can add extra tools.

Even if you don’t have much space at home

Not everyone has access to a garage or a garden. However, there are some excellent ways you can work on your bike, even in the smallest of flats. You just need to set things up correctly. Inside the course you’ll discover exactly how to maintain your bike at home, even if you feel you don’t have the space.

Easy to follow, even for those who hate DIY

If you are a little like me, and even putting up a photo frame on the wall seems scary to you, then you’ll be pleased to see how easy the course is to follow. This is largely thanks to Tom, an instructor from the London Bike Kitchen, who has taught 100s of cyclists before. He knows the typical questions people have and can explain bicycle maintenance in a way that even a complete beginner can understand.

Who the course is for

If you want to save money on bike repairs (even a simple puncture repair costs £13.95)

If you want to spot problems on your bike, before they become an issue

If you want a squeak and creak free bike

If you’d like to be proud of maintaining your bike yourself (and you are willing to accept that your friends will start coming to you for bike maintenance advice!)

If you’d like your bike maintenance to become a relaxing experience rather than a chore

Who the course isn’t for

Anyone that is unwilling to invest £20 for a basic bike maintenance toolkit

We’ll be adding disk brake repairs by mid December and hub gear repairs should follow soon after. Note that we currently have no plans to include Campagnolo component instructions (not that common on most bikes).

Try the Weekend Bike Maintenance course risk free for a full 60 days

I’m certain that what you’ll learn inside will pay for itself at LEAST 5 times over in the coming year. Go through this course and see for yourself. If you don’t save a load of money on bike shop repairs and you don’t gain the confidence to start repairing your bike yourself, then I’ll issue you a full refund. No questions asked.

P.S. The course is available for just £20 and can save you over £100 per year. You get lifetime membership, so you can follow the content whenever is convenient for you.

Feedback from first members

“What I especially liked was the mechanic was very soft spoken, easy to understand, and did not talk down, as you see in many YouTube videos. I just wish I had access to these videos years ago when I got into bicycle maintenance. Great course!” Steve, New York

“Clearly explained and thorough enough for a novice to follow, without feeling that steps were being skipped. I think Tom from the London Bike Kitchen is the perfect person to front this maintenance course – he has a great manner: always clear without ever being patronising. I particularly loved the fact that I could easily browse the site and watch the videos using my iPad. This is really handy for portability when performing the maintenance, but also great for lazing on the sofa and dipping in and out of the videos to learn something new.” Daniel

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Reader Interactions

Comments

Sorry I would really love to join in but I am boycotting paypal at the moment because of their alleged tax-dodging activities mentioned in various media. I don’t know if it’s true, but I am holding back my money from them until I find out more.

I have Campy parts on my go-fast bike – what makes them so much different to maintain?

The bike I ride most, and the one which needs more maintenance than all of the other bikes I own or have ever owned, is the Amsterdam. Between the full chain guard, the drum brake and the skirt guard, even something as simple as changing the back tyre is waaay too complicated for me. I dunno. Maybe mine was just made on a Monday, but I think it should be called the AmsterJag instead. Very pretty, sweet disposition in the saddle, but a high maintenance kinda ride.

Campy parts have slightly different maintenance instructions – there’s no doubt the course will be useful to you but you may need a slightly different set of tools.

We don’t currently cover hub gears (which I imagine the Amsterdam has) so I don’t think the course will be useful for that. However, I am planning on adding this soon. This will make the course more useful for cyclists on bromptons and dutch style bikes. Perhaps we can include something about removing a rear wheel if you’ve got a Dutch style bike!

Yep, it has hub gears, and at the moment it also has a clunk which happens every third pedal rotation, and more on hills. And thank you. A bit on removing that rear wheel would be very useful. At the moment it’s so far beyond me it might as well be rocket science.